Coffee, Fun, Sex and More Insights into FIDE

She is gorgeous, isn’t she! Marianne Fonseca. Brazilian born (December 1989) supermodel, belly button and all. But today we will try to stay focused on the coffee…

The Science Behind Your 1st Cup

I want to thank author Gerard Paul over at ManyEats for informing me about this fascinating topic, and I whole heartedly recommend my readers to click on the above links and take a closer look.

In essence, Science suggests that you should wait a couple of hours after waking up before drinking your first cup of coffee. I know this goes against everything that we have been lead to believe, but there is a sound and rational argument behind it.

It all has to do with the behaviour of a hormone that our body produces, cortisol. Cortisol is a steroid hormone nicknamed the stress hormone. It keeps us alert. Apparently, when we first wake up in the morning (assuming you follow a normal sleep pattern) is when our body has the highest levels of cortisol.

Drinking your first cup of coffee when you just get up is unnecessary. Because you are already very alert. And if you do drink a cup of coffee immediately after getting up then your body will start to produce even more cortisol, which if this pattern is repeated over a long period of time, will increase your tolerance to caffeine and thus reduce its effects. You become a coffee-junkie!

Over time your first cup of coffee in the morning will not give you the boost that you want and will just become a habit, and that is why you should wait a couple of hours until the cortisol levels in your body drop naturally.

Please take a look at the above links and educate yourself on this topic! Thankyou very much, Gerard.

When I am at home I prefer to drink instant coffee instead of brewed coffee. It has somewhat less caffeine. My wife prefers Nespresso, which is one of the reasons she bought a Nespresso machine (the other reason, I suspect, is George Clooney.)

But I have nothing against brewed coffee — or George Clooney for that matter– and when I am at a Starbucks (which is often) I am as happy as a pig in shit drinking brewed coffee. (Maybe the free internet has something to do with that!?)

Curiously — and I had always thought the contrary — brewed coffee is way more popular world wide than instant coffee. The latest published figures show that instant coffee sales, world wide, are about 31 billion dollars per year. As opposed to more than 80 billion dollars for brewed coffee sales.

I came across an interesting article yesterday in Medical Daily that discusses some of the pro’s and con’s of instant coffee versus brewed coffee. Compared to regular brewed coffee, you can get two times more acrylamide from instant coffee.

Readers might remember that acrylamide is one of the reasons why several states in America require coffee products to carry a warning label.

Of course, I think the acrylamide-threat is way over stated. And many scientists have argued that there is no real danger above what is just normal. That being said, I will keep on drinking my instant coffee with the same fervent addiction as before…

Today’s Shark Humour

Really? This is supposed to keep you safe? What if the shark doesn’t understand English or can’t read? Fucked you will be!

Today’s Gratuitous Enlightenment

Can Coffee improve your Sex Life?

Providing you don’t spill it on your partner, then you should be ok. But seriously speaking, for men atleast, there are some sexual benefits with regards to your coffee habit. Researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Centre in Houston have found that caffeine affects the penis in the same way that Viagra does.

It is difficult to compare Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and Arkady Dvorkovich as FIDE presidents because they each have different styles and ways of doing things.

One of the biggest differences between Ilyumzhinov’s FIDE and Dvorkovich’s FIDE is in how each use the social media:

Kirsan used the social media primarily to communicate directly with the FIDE membership. For example, when trouble began at the Presidential Board and he was effectively excommunicated, Kirsan was still able to present his side of the arguments via his long established social media network.

Dvorkovich, on the other hand, uses the social media mostly to create flashy imagery so as to manipulate appearances that are favourable to FIDE’s leadership.

And I have to admit that Dvorkovich has been quite effective in portraying a positive, constructive and successful image of FIDE. No criticism here.

But I do object to the following item that is on the FIDE Linkedln:

My red annotations–editor

While there is no doubt that INTEL pumped millions of dollars into chess promotion between 1993 and 1996, this had NOTHING to do with FIDE in any way, shape or form. INFACT, the money went to FIDE’s rival organization (PCA) set up by Kasparov and Short, not to FIDE.

My problem with this item, as it appears on FIDE’s Linkedln, is that an uninformed reader might draw a different conclusion, and believe that FIDE was infact partnering with INTEL in some way. Which we all know is not even close to the truth.

The above item is pure and simple manipulation of the historical truth, designed to mislead the readers and to portray FIDE’s long time failed record in obtaining western sponsorship as something quite different.

I believe that the webmaster should either correct the impression given with the above item or remove it.

Can Chess improve your Sex Life?

Yes it can! This photo is from the 1979 yearbook of the all-boys Georgian Southern High School. The good old days!

Rex Baines, president of the school’s Chess Club would know all about that. A strong, talented player also. Pity he died of AIDS in the summer of 1981…

Apparently culture and tradition play the dominant roles as to which we prefer. In England and in most of its former colonies, tea is the more popular drink. As for the rest of Europe, much of Africa and almost all of America (North and South) coffee is the perference.

But in Asia tea is by far the more popular drink. While coffee is gaining ground in China to the tune of some 2 billion dollars in sales last year, 99% of the population still prefer tea.

In terms of dollars and cents however, world wide, coffee sales per year are more than double tea’s 50 billion dollars per year sales. It is expected that by 2024 that number will rise to 75 billion dollars a year, but coffee will keep growing even faster.